Dare You To (Pushing the Limits 2)

“Breathe!” says Lacy.

I blow air into the mouth, check vitals, and freeze. With my fingers against the neck, I feel something. It’s faint, but there. Lacy gestures for me to pump, but I shake my head. Our dummy—he’s alive!

The boys start compressions again and a wretched noise blares from their machine. Mr. Knox unplugs it. “You boys forgot to check vitals. ”

Chris swears and Ryan falls onto his ass.

Suck it up, boys. Get used to losing.

Mr. Knox glances my way.

“Congratulations, Lacy and Beth. You’re the only two who kept your patient alive. Good call on the vitals, Beth. ”

Good call on the vitals. Mr. Knox walks away as if this isn’t the most amazing moment of my life. I did something. I saved a life. Well, not really, but I saved the dummy. But I did something right. This unspeakable, overwhelming sense of…I don’t know…I’ve not experienced it before…this feeling of…joy? Anyhow…it floods me. Every part of me.

I—Beth Risk—did something good.

Lacy points at Chris, then at Logan standing over his dead dummy. “We won. ” In her sitting position she moves her shoulders in a crazy little dance. “We won. We won. We won. ”

“Your girl is a sore winner. ” Logan edges closer to us.

“It’s kinda hot though,” says Chris. “Now that you experienced the rush, are you going to take on more dares from us, baby?”

Lacy laughs. “I didn’t take the dare. Beth did. ”

Logan and Chris nod at me in appreciation. I shrug in return. For the past week, we’ve been feeling each other out. Lacy talks to me. Ryan talks to me. Sometimes, I talk back. On Monday, I caved to their brow-beating and began sitting with them at lunch. When Ryan’s feeling bold, he takes my hand. When I’m feeling bolder, I hold his hand back.

At the mention of the dare, I fish a black marker out of my pack. Ryan’s last words before we started CPR were that Lacy and I couldn’t hold out; that we were too weak to outlast the combination of him and Chris. I write the four most beautiful letters on my palm and turn it for Ryan to see: can’t.

As he leans against the wall, that brilliant smile spreads across Ryan’s face and he shakes his head. Warm fuzzies race through my bloodstream. I love that smile. Maybe a little too much.

“I’m not wowed,” I say to him. It’s been four days since our agreement and Ryan’s done nothing to “wow” me.

His smile turns cocky and, I have to admit, I like that smile too. “I’ve got time. ”

FROM THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE ISLAND, Scott watches as I scoop another spoonful of Lucky Charms into my mouth. I talk through the crunches. “And then I felt a pulse and Lacy thought we should pump again and I shook my head no. ”

“Then what happened?” asks Scott.

I feel like I’m going to burst out of my skin.

“We won. I mean, we saved the dummy and Mr. Knox said I did good. ” I did something right. I still can’t get over it.

“That’s fantastic. Isn’t it, Allison?”

It’s eight o’clock at night. Allison sits at the opposite end of the bar and doesn’t bother glancing up from the latest toy Scott bought her last week: an e-reader. “Fantastic,” she echoes in a voice that tells me she doesn’t actually think so.

Shoving another spoonful of cereal into my mouth keeps me from muttering my exact thoughts. I should have waited to tell Scott the story over breakfast, when it’s just the two of us, but I was too excited.

“Is that what it’s like to be a nurse?” I ask Scott. “To feel all powerful and in control. ”

And to have someone tell me that I did good?

My mind races with the possibilities. Maybe I could be a nurse. Blood doesn’t bother me.

Neither does puke. Too worked up to sit still, I drum my hands on the counter—I could really do this.

“You need to excel at science to be a nurse,” says Allison in her bored voice. “And your grades on your last progress report suggest that might be a problem for you. ”